A Study on Consumption and consumer preference for Halal Meat among Pakistani Community in South Korea

Received August 31, 2018
Review February 11, 2019
Accepted February 15, 2019

Abstract

In this study consumption and consumer preference of halal meat among Pakistani community in South Korea is assessed. The study examined consumption and consumer perception for different meat types. Primary data were collected with the aid of questionnaire and 423 customers analyzed using descriptive statistics and multinomial logit regression. Results indicated that chicken was the most preferred meat (38.3%), followed by mutton (25.5%), fish (24.3%) and beef (7.3%). The result of the paper explores that majority of the respondents were male (62.9%) with the age bracket of 30-40 (51.4%). The results also revealed that marital status, age, price, meat quality, taste-flavor, level of religiosity, product packaging, nutrition value, sensorial characteristics (taste, smell, odor, and color) and halal certification are significant with consumer satisfaction for different meat types. The study clearly revealed the preference of halal meat types among the Pakistani respondents community in South Korea.

한국에 거주하는 파키스탄인의 육류에 대한 소비자 인식, 행동 및 선호도에 관한 연구

아 스마 알리, 이 종인†

강원대학교 농업생명과학대학 농업자원경제학과

초록

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Kangwon National University520170185

INTRODUCTION

Meat is any flesh of animal that is used for food. It is valuable livestock product and many people, serves as their first choice source of animal protein. There are different kinds of meat depending on the source, for example, red meat (beef, lamb, goat, bison, etc.), poultry (chicken and turkey), pork, and seafood (Soniran & Okubanjo, 2002). Meat and meat products are essential source of protein in man’s diet and their amino acid composition, and in most cases is a good source of zinc, selenium, phosphorus, niacin, choline, vitamins, vitamins B1, B2, B6, B12 and iron (Battaglia, 2017). Meat consumption varies worldwide, depending on socio-economic conditions, cultural or religious beliefs and tradition. According to the analysis of the Food and agriculture organization (FAO) globally, pork is consumed the most (15.8 kg/capita/year), followed by poultry (13.6 kg/capita/year), beef (9.6 kg/capita/year) and finally sheep and goat (1.9 kg/capita/year) (FAOSTAT, 2014).

In Pakistan household, the choices are equally divided among beef (35%), chicken (33%) and mutton (33%) (HIES, 2013-14). People prefer to purchase fresh meat from the butcher’s shop but the working middle class house wives planned to keep uncooked meat longer, so they think freezing it is the best choice (Tuttle, 2011). In my personal experience, I have never come across an individual who was a vegetarian, if finances allowed a typical family of six people eats meat twice a week or maybe once a week but it depends on buying power and when it is affordable. The consumption of pork is the most popular meat in East, Southeast Asia and western world. For instance, in Muslim countries pork consumption is extremely low or absent whereas it can exceed in countries such as Australia, Poland, Germany and Lithuania (Wikipedia, 1828a).

According to historical records, relation between Korea and Islamic nations countries have continued to cultivate and prosper. Currently, over 140,000 Muslims live in Korea, and for the growing number of Muslim tourists from different nations (Korea Herald, 2015).Last year more than 10 million tourists visit Korea, which is a big ratio ever. It is because of the Koreans citizens’ attitude towards Muslim; they give the respect, love, affection and acceptability for all the religions and different cultures (Travel News, 2013). Korean government offers many opportunities regarding their interest to each and every nations and that is the main reason everyone is eager to be part of all those activities. South Korea will step up efforts to enhance halal certified food and restaurants which cover not only meat but also fruits, vegetable and cosmetics. Korean government have been tried to raise awareness about halal food and organizing seminar and festival to promote halal food and culture (Koreahalal. org).

Like all the other communities, Pakistan has also a large number of people living in Korea attaining their goals. Pakistan and Korea relations have been improved and periodically enhanced, especially in trade, investment, education and man power. South Korea is also a member of Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FODP). According to South Korean government figures in 2015, the Pakistani community in the Republic of Korea (ROK) stood at approximately 15000. Pakistani community in Korea can be divided into four main categories which are the Pakistan Business association, the worker community, Pakistan student association and a few professionals. In South Korea, the ratio of Pakistani student is approximately (1500 students) studying in leading universities in the field of science, medicine, IT and engineering. Most of them are here on university funded (department / professor funded scholarship) while some of them with the induction of HEC scholars in Korean Universities (Wikipedia, 1828b).

Due to the dietary requirements of Islam, it is very difficult to found halal food 10 years before but since the Korean government promoted halal food exports by a third to $1.23 billion by 2017 (Salamgateaway, 2016).Now we can easily find halal meat shops and restaurants in almost every city of Korea. Halal is a term designating any object or an action refers to what is permissible or lawful in traditional Islamic law. It is frequently applied to permissible to engage in e.g. eat, drinks, use and food. South Korea is a religion independent country, in every city of Korea there are a number of mosques where the Muslims can pray five times a day. The central mosque is located in Itaewon and this place is a must visit place for Muslim tourists, not only because of central mosque but the main source to get Halal food (Nam, 2012).

Due to the ongoing globalization international markets, if we observed consumption trends meat has become a major dietary product among all agriculture goods. The culture, traditions, customs, place are influencing the consumption of meat, especially if you are living in foreign society. Among all agriculture products, meat is considered as highly nutritious and has become a rich component of human diet. There are many factors that impact consumer eating habits and trends such as: cultural, socio-economic factors (age, gender, income, education, level of religiosity, meat quality, price, health circumstances, household size, satisfaction, content and easiness of cooking (Grimshaw, 2013).

Thus the broad objective of this study is to address the consumer perception and behavior of meat types and to express the importance of understanding consumer’s perception for halalness of the different meat types in relation to their selected socio-economic characteristics. Similarly, the concern about the factors that influenced the buying habits and what factor that affect the preferences of different meat consumption. The present study however aimed at evaluating the consumption behavior and preferences of halal meat types in different cities among Pakistani community in South Korea.

Material and Method

1. Data collection and sample

We are thankful to Pakistani community Korea is NONPROFIT- BASED, SOCIAL, AND WELFARE organization, working since June 2012 for collecting valuable information required for conducting the study. Randomized samples of 453 respondents were interviewed via structured questionnaire, in order to collect the information of meat consumers the questionnaires have been sent by email in April 2017, and then after four months 433 responses received. Questionnaires that were not completed have been rejected to ensure the reliability of the sample. As a result, out of 433 only 423 responses were selected as a sample in the study. Data collected are socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents, meat consumption level in the study area, relative importance of meat to respondents, factors influencing consumption and preference of various types of meat, and their consumption and preference to halal meat types.

2. Model

The data was analyzed using Multinominal Logistic Regression Model. The multinomial logistic regression model is the extension for the (binary) logistic regression (Chan, 2004). It is used when dependent variable has more than two categories of the dependent or outcome variable. Like binary logistic regression, multinominal logistic regression uses maximum likelihood estimation to evaluate the probability of categorical membership (Starkweather & Moske, 2011).Data collected were analyzed through the use of descriptive Statistical Package for the social sciences SPSS-Version 22 (SPSS, Chicago, IL,, USA, 2013) to generate tables, means, cumulative frequency and multinomial logistic regression. The model specification for the study is:

LogY=​β0+β1X1+β2X2+β3X3+β4X4+β5X5+β6X6+------+β15X15+et.

Where Y= Consumer preference on Meat choices which is categorized as:

1=Chicken 2 =Mutton

3= Beef 4= Fish

5= Other

β0,β1,β2,β3,β4,β5,β6,β7,β8,β9,β10,β11,β12,β13,β14,andβ15 are the coefficients of each independent variable respectively.

X1 = Age of the respondents

X2 = Gender of the respondents

X3 = Residence X4 = Marital Status

X5 = Education X6 = Income Level

X7 = Price X8 = Meat Quality

X9 = Product Packaging X10 = Nutritive value

X11 = Taste-Flavour X12 = Texture-Color

X13 = Halal Certification X14 = Level of Religiosity

X15 = Sensorial Characteristics (taste, smell, odor, color)

In the above model, dependent variable is the preference of halal meat choice which has five categories. A positive estimated coefficient implies an increase in likelihood that a respondent will choose the alternative choice of a meat while there negative estimation indicates that there is less likelihood that a respondent will choose to alternative of other meat choice

et = error term.

Results and Discussion

1. Socio Economics characteristics of the respondents

Table 1 shows the socio economic characteristics of respondents, 62.9 percent of the respondents were male while 37.1 percent of the respondents were female. 40.4 percent of the respondents have age less than 30, 51.5 percent of the respondents falls between 30-40 years, 8.0 percent of the respondents have age more than 40 years. 53.7 percent of the respondents were single while 46.3 percent of the respondents were married. 22.5 percent of the respondents have master’s degree education, 37.8 percent have Doctoral degree education, 6.1 percent have postdoctoral degree/fellowship, 2.8 percent have professor designation and 30.7 have others jobs like hoteliers, business and workers. 4.0 percent of the respondents belong to Chunchon city, 22.0 percent belong to Seoul city, 24.6 percent belong to Daegu city, 18.0 percent belong to Choenan city and 31.4 percent belong to other cities in South Korea. 20.1 percent of the respondents are not religious, 48.9 percent have somehow religious, 20.6 percent have religious and 10.4 percent have falls in very religious category. Majority of the respondents have monthly income of 400,000 -800,000 won (30.5 percent) with the least group having less than 400,000 won (5.7 percent). 27.2 percent of the respondents have household size between 1-3, 46.1 percent have 4-6 household size, 16.3 percent have 7-9 household size while 10.4 percent have falls in others category.

2. Availability and consumption of meat types

Table 2 shows the Availability and consumption of different meat types. The result from this study shows that 26.7 percent of the respondents consume meat every day, 29.8 percent consume it weekly, 23.6 percent consume it twice in a week, 10.6 percent consume it thrice in a week and 9.2 percent consume it monthly. 35.5 percent of the respondents purchase meat in market place, 46.3 percent purchase meat through online website while 18.2 percent purchase meat by others way. 50.8 percent of the respondents eat less meat in Korea as compared to home country, 39.2 percent have equally consumed meat, 4.7 percent said we eat more meat while 5.2 percent of people not sure about this. When we ask question regarding what the reason is behind eat less meat in Korea than 51.3 percent of the respondents reply because in Korea halal meat is not easy available, 40.9 percent reply because it is expensive here and 7.8 percent have no reason about this.

In Table 3, the most preferred meat is chicken and least preferred meat is beef. According to the results, the chicken meat preference is only because of less expensive. Mutton and beef is very expensive and our data is mainly cover for students, so their preference is due to their income level. And their choice of fish preference is due to lack of halal meat availability. So the fish and other (vegetables) is the substitute of halal meat.

4. Concern about halal food

Table 4 presents the mean scores and the percentage of the components included in the five-point scale (1 to 5) stated earlier. In general, religious concern seems to be the major factor among the Muslims in buying food to confirm the halalness of the food. They also concerned about food and drink based on the Halal and the method of manufacturing is also important about halalness. Similarly, customers seemed to agree that halal method of food preparation (such as slaughtering of animals) is more hygienic and secured. The information of how the food is being prepared is very necessary for the consumers in choosing whether the product is halal or not.

5. Overall test of relationship

First thing in MLR for any risk analysis is to describe the overall test of relationship between independent and dependent variable (Chan, 2005;Bayaga, 2010). In Table 5, the initial log likelihood value (1176.805) is a measure of null model (with constant or intercept only, but no independent variables). The final log likelihood value (874.850) is computed after all of the independent variables have been entered into the regression analysis. If we take difference between these two measures (1176.805 – 874.850), 301.955 is the model chi-square value that is tested for statistical significance. The tested statistical value 301.955, has a significant level less than 0.05 (i.e., .00< .05).

6. Strength of multinomial logistic regression relationship

Once the first step is completed, the next step is to establish the strength of multinomial logistic regression relationship; MLR does compute correlation measure but the strength of relationship (Pseudo R square measures, such as Nagelkerke R). As we shown in Table 6, the pseudovalue R2 value explained the amount of variance in the outcome variable by the independent variables. The Cox and Snell, and Nagelkerke pseudo- R2 in Table 6 suggest that the variation in the level of meat types outcomes explained by the different factors ranges between 51.1% and 54.4%. Thus a relatively high level of variation is explained by the model.

7. Multinomial logistic regressions

In Table 7 shows the significance of each of the factors individually. It observes the improvement in the model fit with each of the factors. The result of multinomial logistic regression model where marital status, age, price, meat quality, product packaging, nutritive value, taste-flavor, halal certification, level of religiosity and sensorial characteristics were found to have significant relationship factor with consumer preference for halal meat types. On the other hand gender, residence, education, income and texture- color were not significant factors influencing preference.

Conclusions and Suggestions

In general, meat was observed as a healthy component of the human diet. This research indicates a set of important factors that determine the consumption behavior of halal meat types. Majority of the respondents are males and university students represents the biggest portion of the sample. Almost all of the respondents are willing to select halal meat, because of the religious obligation. Consumer perception of meat choices and consumption pattern is affected by their income. The study concludes that poultry meat type that is most preferred and consumed by respondents and the beef is the least preferred. And this preference is only because of income, as chicken meat is less expensive so the preference is only due to low income not to taste.

The result of multinomial logit model reveal that all these variable which include, Age, marital status, price, meat quality, taste-Flavor, level of religiosity, product packaging, nutrition value, sensorial characteristics and halal certification were statistically significant factor influencing preferences in general. External variable such as some demographic factors like, education, age, halal certification, and the others state of variables have strong relationship with customer’s concern about the selection of halal meat and food products. The study therefore recommends that halal food as one of the most important factors and the halal meat producers and Korean government should divert more resources to the production of halal meat so that they can meet consumer demand.